I want to watch this up close!!!!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

[Ronja]

What is it? Suggestive and very beautiful, though, that much is clear.

[Eriku]

I reckon you'd be missing the galaxy for the stars if you did.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

What is it? Suggestive and very beautiful, though, that much is clear.

Two galaxies colliding.

[PsychoSerenity]

And on fast forward for most of the time, with the ability to slow to real time or slower and zoom right in occasionally.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

And on fast forward for most of the time, with the ability to slow to real time or slower and zoom right in occasionally.

One couldn't just pop by and watch it. You could "see" it that way, but not "watch" it. I would want to want it from first contact until it settled out in the new mega-galaxy form.

But can you imagine living on a planet where you can see a galaxy in the night sky that will be hitting yours in the "near" future.

[MrFungus420]

What is it? Suggestive and very beautiful, though, that much is clear.

Two galaxies colliding.

Just wait around a few billion years. We're going to collide with Andromeda.

[mistermack]

Collide is the wrong word really.
They interact, or intermingle, or merge. But the space between the stars in a galaxy is so vast that two galaxies COULD "collide" without any stellar collisions at all.
They just interact and interfere gravitationally.

Which is just as well. I can't imagine what would happen if two super-massive black holes actually collided. Maybe not a lot, or maybe something incredible.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Collide is the wrong word really.
They interact, or intermingle, or merge. But the space between the stars in a galaxy is so vast that two galaxies COULD "collide" without any stellar collisions at all.
They just interact and interfere gravitationally.

Which is just as well. I can't imagine what would happen if two super-massive black holes actually collided. Maybe not a lot, or maybe something incredible.

The volumes referred to as "galaxy" do collide. The individual stars don't. Mostly. I'm thinking one or two might come close enough to mingle their star-stuff. That would be fun to watch too.

[mistermack]

Collide is the wrong word really.
They interact, or intermingle, or merge. But the space between the stars in a galaxy is so vast that two galaxies COULD "collide" without any stellar collisions at all.
They just interact and interfere gravitationally.

Which is just as well. I can't imagine what would happen if two super-massive black holes actually collided. Maybe not a lot, or maybe something incredible.

The volumes referred to as "galaxy" do collide. The individual stars don't. Mostly. I'm thinking one or two might come close enough to mingle their star-stuff. That would be fun to watch too.

I know people normally say colliding galaxies. I should have said it's the wrong word "in my opinion" really. That's what I mean't.
It's more like two clouds of very thin smoke, than two objects colliding.
I'm sure I read somewhere that it's very possible for two galaxies to collide without one single collision of stars, but I can't quote where. It might have been on The Sky At Night.

I would imagine you'd get something like a huge Supernova, if two stars did actually hit each other, but that's just a guess. I've never seen it described anywhere.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Meh, it's shorter than "The volume of space defined by the accepted limits of one galaxy combining in a slow process with the volume of space defined by the accepted limits of another galaxy."

We have stars eating stars, and black holes colliding, so there's probably a study of stars colliding somewhere "out there". Perhaps Phil Plait's forum would know?

[Blind groper]

One result of such a collision is occasional strong gravitational effects. While it is unlikely in the extreme that another star would collide with our sun, the chances of one coming close enough for its gravity to have a substantial effect is much higher. One side effect of galaxies merging is that some suns get thrown at high speed right out of the galaxy. What would that mean for us if our sun was one?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

One result of such a collision is occasional strong gravitational effects. While it is unlikely in the extreme that another star would collide with our sun, the chances of one coming close enough for its gravity to have a substantial effect is much higher. One side effect of galaxies merging is that some suns get thrown at high speed right out of the galaxy. What would that mean for us if our sun was one?

Maybe some will have speed cameras installed and we'd get pulled over before we made it out of town.